Russian judge throws out piracy case

A RUSSIAN judge has tossed out a piracy case against school principal Alexander Ponosov who apparently installed hot VoleWare at his school.

Ponosov is principal of the secondary school in the village of Sepych and the case attracted a lot of attention when former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev wrote to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates for mercy in the case. Vole said the case had nothing to do with them and it was up to the Russian courts to decide.

According to Microsoft Watch, Judge Elvira Mosheva dismissed the case because "Microsoft's financial damage is too insignificant for a criminal investigation."

The judge questioned whether the prosecution had provided convincing evidence against Ponosov. Prosecutors claimed he had installed the software after he bought the computers, Ponosov said that the software came with the PCs he bought.

A technical expert showed that Ponosov purchased the computers in August 2005, but the pirated software wasn't installed until April 2006.

At the last minute, the prosecution changed the core of its case against Ponosov. Rather than charging him for installing counterfeit software, prosecutors claimed that he illegally used the software for a week after an investigation uncovered piracy.

They said that this was worth about $115 to Microsoft. The Judge said that this was not worth bothering about and kicked out the case.

More here. µ

See Also
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Microsoft snubs Gorbachev over piracy plea
Russian schools abandon Windows after piracy scare